10.01.2008

I have always, always held a huge fascination with fabrics. The way they feel and smell, the potential for crafty items that spins in my head when I hold a particularly pretty length of cloth in my hands. A trip to my local fabric store is something to look forward to, for me, and for Jess, something to lose patience during. :) Though who could blame him -- I could spend hours there!

I am not, by any means, a great seamstress, but I do enjoy a bit of hobbyist sewing when I get the urge every once in a while. So somehow, I got the idea in my head that maybe, just maybe, I'd like to extend my design skillset out to textiles. Hmmm.

But how to get from the drawing board to the bolt? I started researching everything, from contacting textile designers whose work I admired to local textile design programs, to investing in screenprinting materials to print on fabric myself. I certainly learned a lot, but the quest was about to get a little easier... enter Spoonflower!

Spoonflower is a site where members can upload designs, choose an amount of fabric and then receive the printed goods after a short wait. The site is still in Beta and only open to invited testers, so I almost died when I received my invite in my emailbox. I wasted no time transferring a design to the computer, changing up the colors a little, uploading it feverishly (the same night I got my invite, no lie) and ordering a fat quarter's worth of printed 100% Kona cotton. And in no time, I came home one day to a package of this:

It's not perfect, because I messed up the repeat somehow (designs must be uploaded in a format that's fully tileable) and you can tell where my design's "edges" are:

Oops! But, so far so good for my first tiny little foray into the world of textile design... I'm still thrilled with a childlike giddiness that I am holding a piece of cloth with my own design on it and I'm sure there's more to come!